Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to remote access, and, more specifically, to compressing graphics data rendered on a primary computer for transmission to a remote computer.
Description of the Related Art
Desktop sharing technologies enable the remote access of a primary computer via graphical terminal that executes on a secondary computer. The graphical terminal allows a user of the secondary computer to view and access any applications executing on the primary computer. To enable the operations of the graphics terminal, a server process typically executes on the primary computer that collects graphics data related to applications executing on the primary computer and transmits the collected graphics data to the secondary computer.
There are several drawbacks to currently available desktop sharing technologies. First, when the secondary computer connects to the primary computer, applications executing on the primary computer typically encounter a negative side effects. For example, a gaming application executing on the primary computer may exit when the secondary computer connects to the primary computer. Importantly, current desktop sharing technologies do not provide a smooth transition to applications executing on the primary computer when a connection between the primary computer and the secondary computer is established. Second, because the display resolution at the primary computer and the display resolution at the secondary computer are often different, the graphical display of the primary computer may be modified to match the display resolution of the secondary computer. Matching the display resolutions in such a manner may adversely affect the graphics that are displayed at the primary computer and impact the overall display quality for any user viewing the graphics displayed at the primary computer. Third, current desktop sharing technologies consume a significant amount of processing and network bandwidth when collecting and transmitting graphics data to the secondary computer. This negatively impacts the overall performance of the primary computer, and, oftentimes, renders the primary computer unusable.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a mechanism for efficiently transmitting graphics data to a remote computer.